Desire
by Zil
Summary: *repost* Normalverse AU #2. Rogue without powers?


AN:Not a series, but there is a sort of timeline in place. I'll put numbers before the stories so you know roughly where it's set.  
  
Same intro, different story.  
  
Before I get any 'what the heck?' reviews, please read the following notes:  
no wait! Don't run away  
  
Disclaim!  
  
I do not own Scott Summers. Ye gads, if I owned the man...well, anyway. Marvel owns him and lots of other cool things  
too.  
  
  
"As if anything in my life has ever happened that I can use as I guideline for normal...In so many ways the world has  
changed completely...and in other ways it hasn't changed at all."  
-Scott Summers, UXM #337.  
  
Okay, so I'm paraphrasing a little. The point is, the X-men lead these far-out fantastical lives. Now there's nothing wrong  
with that, it makes for interesting reading, but it also leaves me snorting and saying 'That'd never happen in real life.'   
  
So what would happen in real life? This 'Normal' series are my ideas.   
  
Some things have changed a lot; some things are the same.  
  
Yes, I've screwed with some of the ages to fit my twisted little mind. It's not a lot though, and I think it's for good  
purpose.  
  
Also, I've (hopefully) written them in such a way that though they are numbered, any one story should be readable on  
it's own.   
  
If you like this scenario go to www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/Bayou/8406/ordinary/ordinary/ordinary.html   
for an archive of other writers idea of 'ordinary' X-Men.  
  
Thanks for reading! Kevin Spacey loves me! (I don't get it either...)  
  
!Zil!  
  
  
  
  
  
  
2.  
  
Desire  
  
  
Big thanx to evenstar for all her help  
Archive if you want (please tell me where)  
Marvel owns characters, ect. I make no money  
Feedback is fantastic  
!  
  
"Tell me in a world without pity  
Do you think what I'm askin's too much?  
I just want something to hold on to  
And a little of that human touch"  
-Bruce 'Boss' Springsteen   
  
  
"Always want what you can't have. And you'd hate it anyway."  
  
"Pardon me?"  
  
"Ah said, you can't always have what you want, and besides our pecan pie is terrible. Don't tell the cook Ah said that.  
The apple is much better."  
  
Ah finish taking their order, and stop to lean on the counter for a minute.  
  
"Meg honey, you look plumb tuckered out. Why don't you go on your break now?"  
  
"Thanks Nan, Ah think Ah will." Walk over ta the park across the street and buy myself a cup of lemonade. The vendor and me are getting ta be old friends, but that still doesn't stop him from starin' at my uniform, too low at the top and not low enough at the bottom. Ah watch the children playing in the schoolyard down the block. Soon Cody will be out there playing with them. My little boy is growing up so fast! The day is warm, but not sweltering. Maybe Ah'll wear that black dress on my date with Brad tonight. Ah really shouldn't be goin' out with Brad anyway. If Ian finds out he'll be awful hurt, and Ah like Ian so much. Maybe that's why Ah'm goin' out with Brad. Once a slut always a slut. What would Momma think? Depends on which one Ah guess.   
  
My first Momma... Ah can hardly remember her. She loved me though. Ah think she looked like me. Had a picture, but Ah gave it to Chrissy Ann. She had hair the same color as her name, Ginger. Had the same strange white stripe Ah got too.  
Chrissy and me both. My Momma, Virginia Jane. She only ever called me by my second name, Marie. It's funny, thinkin' of her makes me happy and scared at the same time. Guess Daddy feels the same, he never seemed to forgive us for  
survivin' that car accident when she didn't. Well, maybe he's over it now. But Ah've seen the way he looks at me sometimes, from the corner of his eye, and Ah just know he's gonna hit me again, just like he used to when Ah was six and he'd had too much ta drink. Maybe that's why he can forgive Chrissy Ann easier, she wasn't there ta hit. Sweet little baby, just two months old, went ta live with Aunt Felicia after Momma died. Ah'm the one he has ta look at and say, this is my daughter, who Ah hit. It's not something he wants ta think about, but here Ah am, in livin' colour.   
  
Then one day when Ah was seven, my best friend Cody had an aneurysm, right there at our hang out by the river. Ah think that got Daddy scared then. At the time Ah don't know what Ah thought, but Ah can see now that maybe he realized that people don't have ta be in terrible accident ta die, that his little girl, who he loved, even though when he got drunk he hit her, could just drop dead. And so ta get rid of his fear he got even drunker. Or maybe he just got fed up with me cryin' over Cody. Anyway, he locked me in the cellar. It was two days before he sobered up enough ta realize.  
The school people found out and they called the authorities and they took me away from Daddy.   
Aunt Felicia's actually my Momma's auntie and she's so old she could barley take care of the one kid she was already  
lookin' after. All the relatives felt real bad, but none of them wanted ta take in Jordan's bad seed. So Ah just bounced around every foster home in the county for a couple years 'til one day this woman hit me with her car. Ah wasn't hurt and she's real nice. Turned out she's some rich lady with two boys, and she's just come back from Europe ta spend some time in this beautiful old Victorian mansion she had here. And she'd always wanted a little girl, so would Ah like ta come and live with her? In a heart beat! Her name was Raven Darkholme and she was the most beautiful woman Ah'd seen. She had hair the red colour of copper, and the whitest skin ever. Ah didn't look much like her, being all brown from  
runnin' in the sun all day, but she said Ah was the perfect daughter, and muh hair's the colour of rubies. No one ever said anything nice 'bout my hair before, mostly they just called me skunk girl. She started callin' me Rosemarie, after the flowers in the garden.   
  
Raven's boys went ta boarding school in another state, but they'd come home for the summer. The older one's Kurtis  
Michael Wagner Darkholme, but Raven called him Michael, the same way my first Momma called me by my middle name.  
He's funny and nice, and Ah showed him my hang out by the river. Ah didn't get ta go there very often then, Momma said it was an unbecomin' place for a young lady. Michael told me not ta call him that, that all his friends called him Kurt. He was four years older then me and just like a real big brother, except Ah had ta teach him how ta fish. The younger boy though, he didn't like me much. His name was Graydon Creed Darkholme, and he called me white trash whenever  
Momma wasn't around. Even though Graydon and Kurt were only one year apart they were as different as day and night. Kurt has mischievous elfin features and he's really good at gymnastics. His hair's so black it looks blue. Graydon's stockier and has no sense of humor. Kurt once told me how his own dad was a German Count who lost everything in a revolution, but Momma had already taken off with most of the family fortune, so she stayed rich. Then she met Graydon's daddy, but things turned bad between them, and she's always sort of resented Graydon. He told me this story in whispers as we lay in a field after catching fireflies. Ah think that Kurt loves his brother, and wouldn't have told me his secrets except he wanted me ta know that Graydon's life was harder. He was never good enough, that's why he treated everyone else so bad.   
  
Life went on for a while, the boy's went away during the school years, but Ah stayed with Momma and went ta school here in town. It was nice ta stay near Momma, but it was also hard 'cause everyone in town knew Ah was really just a white trash girl from the wrong side of the tracks. Ah tried ta be a lady like Momma taught me, but everyone at school saw me as something else. Soon, the kid's view of me beat out Momma's idea of her little lady, and it was just easier ta give in. It was honestly not as difficult as one'd think. Ah like boys. A lot. The feeling of their skin on mine... Even as a tiny girl my favorite thing was fallin' asleep while Momma stroked my cheek. The summer when Ah was fourteen, right before Kurt started his final year of high school, Ah noticed that Graydon wasn't callin' me names anymore. In fact he seemed ta be payin' me a lot more attention. So Ah showed him how nice we white trash girls could be. Boy, was Momma mad when she found out. She said a lot of things that weren't very nice. In the end she said she was movin' back ta Europe full time and Ah could go ta boarding school over there, or Ah could go back and live with my father.  
Either way, Ah'd never get ta see Graydon again. Now, Ah didn't really care 'bout Graydon, Ah was just usin' him anyway, same as he was usin' me, Ah guess. But Ah realized a lot of things right then and there. Maybe Raven loved me, or maybe she just thought she did, but really she was just using me. She has a need ta be in control, she likes ta manipulate things. What she really wanted was ta change was herself, but she didn't know how. So she grabbed onto others and did what she could with them. Ah don't know, maybe we're all just using each other on some level.  
  
As it turned out, my Daddy had cleaned himself up a couple years after the state took me away. He married a woman named Donna, who had a little girl only a few months older than my sister, Chrissy Ann. They'd been together six years and had themselves a pack of kids. Daddy'd gotten back custody of Chrissy, but couldn't get me 'cause of Raven. So Ah went ta live with my Daddy and changed my name back ta Megan Marie, which quickly became Meggie. Momma and  
Graydon moved ta France, but Kurt stayed in the States and went ta Yale. Things were better then before with Daddy, there was no hitting or drinking, but it was still far from perfect. Donna was a nice lady, but she was too busy changing diapers ta be much of a mom ta a half-grown girl. And ta avoid being enlisted in the diaper brigade Ah began staying out later and later. It's a miracle Ah graduated high school, but Ah did. The guidance counselor had me do a bunch a tests and it turns out Ah'm not just another dumb hick, Ah'm a brilliant dumb hick, and Ah coulda gone ta some school in New  
York for gifted kids, but Ah really didn't feel like movin' around again. Or that was my excuse.  
  
Then, four years ago, Ah met a man named Erik. He was some hotshot businessman from Germany. We met at the park where he was feedin' birds and hit it off right away. There was something about him. He was older then my father, but when Ah was in his arms the world just felt very right. At the time Ah thought it was love, but now Ah know that love is different, it's what Ah feel for Ian, who's off peacekeeping in Bosnia. What Ah had with Erik is something more desperate and primal, it's a feeling that maybe this could work if the world were different, but all we have right here is these few moments. It's the same thing Ah had just a few months with an accountant from New York who came into the restaurant where Ah work. And the feeling Ah got from him is the reason Ah'm going out with Brad tonight. 'Cause while Ah think Ah love Ian, the way Bobby made me feel those few nights he was here was different then anything any man has ever made me feel, save Erik. But both of them left. They just turned and went back ta their perfect lives with their wives and children. And Ah can summon no regret, only the slightest tingle of loss, and smidgen of relief. Erik left me a reminder though, a little boy with blond hair and grey-green eyes. Ah named him after my two best friends, Cody Kurt.   
  
Now Ah'm twenty-two, Ah'm working my way through law school while raising a four year old and living with my Daddy and step-mom. Ah chuck my empty cup into the big metal waste basket, nod to the lemonade guy and head back to the restaurant. Kurt will be coming ta town soon, and we'll go and sit by the river and talk. When Ian gets back from over-seas maybe Ah'll say yes ta the question he asked me before he left. After work today Ah'll go home and my son will run up and kiss my cheeks, little brothers and sisters will pull on my hands and arms for attention. Later Brad will make me feel sexy and dirty at the same time, and then some other night some other guy, whoever he'll be, will do the same. And sometimes Ah wish that no one could touch me.  



End file.
